


Written in Blood

by centerofgravity



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Gen, No Trespasser Spoilers, Post-Game(s), Pre-Trespasser
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-18
Updated: 2017-03-18
Packaged: 2018-10-06 21:50:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10345275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/centerofgravity/pseuds/centerofgravity
Summary: After Solas leaves, Lavellan regrets the choice to remove her vallaslin. So she does something about it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Elvish Translations in the End Notes

 

He has been gone for a month when Lavellan makes the choice.

It takes another two weeks to track down a keeper that hasn’t heard of the Inquisition, has never heard of the elven Inquisitor. She finds a small, roaming clan living in the Frostbacks. They occasionally do commerce with the Avvar, but they haven’t paid attention to human affairs in centuries. The keeper is reluctant to return with Leiliana’s scouts to Skyhold, she casts a nervous eye upward to where the Breach once marred the sky and insists she wants nothing to do with anyone who could open _or close_ such a thing.

So Lavellan goes to her.

Keeper Eloril meets her reluctantly. She comes alone and insists Lavellan meet her somewhere well away from her clan- the inquisition scouts have chosen a small clearing on the outskirts of the Frostback Basin. There are enough trees to offer the semblance of privacy, though Lavellan knows the scouts have only pretended to withdraw out of hearing distance.

Eloril is old, but she walks with a certainty that Lavellan admires. Eloril’s back has a distinct haunch, but her legs and arms are steady and she walks without assistance. Her face is mass of wrinkles, more than Lavellan has ever seen on another elf, and she wonders precisely _how_ long Eloril has been guiding her clans through this remote mountain territory.

“Andaran atish’an, Keeper.”

But Eloril freezes when she sees Lavellan’s face. Her ancient eyes are penetrating, but they scour Lavellan’s face, clear of vallaslin, the sickly green light gleaming on her left hand, and linger on her robes. Lavellan hasn’t worn the traditional Keeper’s robes in- months? _Years_? It feels like a lifetime ago that she was First of her Clan. In a way, she thinks, it was a different life. She is a different person now. The Inquisitor. But for this, she needed to be Ellanna again.

“I was told you were Dalish.” Eloril’s voice is dust and gravel. “You wear the robes, but-“

“Ir abelas, hahren.” Lavellan’s hands reach self-consciously to her face. She had never gotten used to seeing her new face in the mirror. She had always felt like she was looking back in time, at a more childish version of herself. And she now knows that in some ways she has never grown out of that naivete. Wise enough to sit in judgement, but blind enough not to see the wolf at her door. And now she feels naked before this woman. Her fingers trace the place where Mythal’s branches used to wind and climb across her face. “I can only imagine your confusion.”

“Garas quenathra?”

Lavellan starts at the question. Her right hand still lingers, searching her face for the woman she’d lost somewhere along the way. Her left hand is clenched shut, always.

“Ma halani, hahren. I have made a terrible mistake.” Ellanna lets her hand drop, finally. Her voice is shaking, something she could never allow in Skyhold. Or anywhere else. “I would ask that you heal me.”

Eloril casts an appraising gaze on her, still keeping her distance on the other side of the clearing. Her eyes catch again on the green light of the Mark, and whatever else she gleans from Lavellan’s posture- it is clear that she has been found wanting. Eloril gestures briefly to a clutch of elfroot nearby. “Ir abelas, I can do nothing for you that your horde of humans can not do for you.” The Keeper’s voice is tinged with disdain.

“Mana.” Ellanna’s voice is quiet, pleading. She can feel the tangle of words caught in her throat, but the explanations and excuses are quickly falling away. This woman will give nothing to someone who can only fall over themselves with apologies. She straightens, and finds the Inquisitor’s voice at the bottom of her lungs. “My vallaslin. I need you to restore them, or redo them.”

The Keeper responds to the change in Lavellan’s tone. The disdain has left her voice, but the stone remains. “Why should I, fool that you are to have lost them in the first place?”

“I-“ No one has asked Lavellan _why_ in a long time. They have done little but bow and scramble before her, to obey her every whim. The last person to ask her why- well, the last person to make her question her beliefs- she tried not to linger on thoughts of him, the lilt in his voice or the grace of his long fingers, tracing a passage in some esoteric tome ~~or the line of her jaw, collarbone, lips~~.

Finally, she comes to the words. Despite her best effort to summon the voice she uses on the throne, they come out as a croak. “Lathbora viran, Mi’nas’sal’in.”

Once the words have left her lips she feels empty, but clean, like the bank of a river scraped raw by flooding waters.

Keeper Elorin is silent for a long time, but she shifts her weight from foot to foot, touches her fingers to her forearm and her neck and then finally to her face. Her left hand comes to cover the left side of her face, where the black half of Elgar’nan’s favor sits.

“You were embarrassed to return to your own Keeper.” It is not question.

“No. They are gone.”

Elorin looks again at the Mark. Its green is the color of avarice and illness. And Elorin’s silent assumption is not incorrect. The Mark did kill Clan Lavellan, as much as Elanna had, as much as Shemlan hatred had. Elorin purses her lips and nods.

“I will do this for you, da’len.”

Lavellan’s body goes slack with relief. “Ma serannas, hahren.”

The keeper has turned her back, no doubt to fetch the necessary supplies from her camp. Lavellan notes that she is not invited to return with her, vallaslin or no.

“Mana. There is one other thing.”

Lavellan draws a well-worn piece of paper from her pocket. The pencil marks have been scrubbed clear and redrawn several times, finally traced over again with pen. But the picture is clear enough- a face with vallaslin. The lines are heavy and jagged. They speak of mountains, blades, and perhaps the jaw of a wolf.

“I have… a different design. A new one. Not dedicated to the gods.”

“Fen'Harel ma ghilana.”

“Fenedhis!” Ellanna’s laughter is a bark. She finds a genuine smile on her face as she stares down at the new pattern. “No, no. Not that. With this… Ir tel'him.”

Lavellan waits patiently for Keeper Elorin to return. She contemplates the scar in the sky, the strange, colorful birds, and the look on Solas’s face when she hunts him down, new vallaslin and all.

**Author's Note:**

> Andaran atish'an- Common Dalish Greeting  
> Ir Abelas- I'm sorry  
> Hahren- an elder  
> Garas quenathra- Why have you come here/ What do you want?  
> Ma halani- Help me  
> Mana- Wait/Stop  
> Lathbora viran- Roughly translated as "the path to a place of lost love," a longing for a thing one can never really know  
> Mi’nas’sal’in- the intense feeling of missing something or someone that is deeply important or personal. Lit. “The knife again in my soul. (((CREDIT DUE TO http://fenxshiral.tumblr.com and their wonderful elven translations)))  
> Ma serannas- Thank You  
> Fen'Harel ma ghilana-"Dread Wolf guides you." Indicates someone being mislead/making bad life choices.  
> Fenedhis- A sort of curse word  
> Ir tel'him- I am myself again


End file.
